


Not Wasted On One's Self

by JustAPassingGlance



Series: seblaine week 2014 [2]
Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Friendship, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-08
Updated: 2014-07-08
Packaged: 2018-03-04 18:35:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3081527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustAPassingGlance/pseuds/JustAPassingGlance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As orphans with no one to look out for them but themselves, their lives weren’t always the easiest. There were nights they were so hungry they could barely remember their names and days they stood shivering on the streets. But they had each other, and that was worth more than what anyone else had.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Wasted On One's Self

**Author's Note:**

> Because there will never be enough Sequaine in the world.  
> Set in 1850's London.
> 
> Written for seblaine week 2014, day 3: historical/different decades

The river trudged on, just as miserable and dirty as the streets that surrounded it. Sailors told stories of waters so clear you could see straight through them, right on down to the pebbly bottom. Others told of oceans so blue any king would willingly wage a war for his queen to have a gem of such a color. Here, though, the river was the color of putrefied muck with a stench that permeated the entire city and kept anyone who did not need to be near as far away as possible.   
  
Despite all of this, the bankside was one of Blaine’s favorite spots in the city. The waters, even if they were more refuse than anything else, flowed far away. Further then he could ever imagine Into other rivers that went other places and into the gaping Ocean (or so he had been told).  
  
He started from his enchanted reverie as a small hand crept into his.   
  
“I knew I would find you here.” A blonde girl less than a year older than him flashed him a quick smile before a grimace wrinkled her delicate features. “I don’t know why you like it so much. The smell…” she trailed off but made sure her face was an accurate display of disgust.   
  
Blaine shrugged, his nine year old mind unable to come up with the words to explain the sweeping hope that filled him up at the all the secret promises the river offered. “And I was running errands,” he nodded at the barge that was tied up nearby.   
  
“We have soup.” She gave his hand a tug, pulling him away from the bank and down a winding, dark alley.   
  
“And you left Sebastian with it? You should know better, Quinn.” He laughed in disbelief.   
  
“Mrs. Peggotty is making him wait. He was furious.” Her dainty laugh echoed off the tall houses surrounding them on either side. 

The public house they stopped in front of was almost indistinguishable from the many others in the area. But the owner’s wife had a soft spot for Quinn, who reminded her of her own daughter who had been lost to cholera years before they had been born. On more than one occasion her nostalgia afforded the three of them supper and a place to sleep on the most bitter nights.   
  
Sebastian was sitting at their usual table in the back corner, looking grumpily at the door as he waited for their arrival.   
  
As soon as Blaine and Quinn joined him, Mrs. Peggotty swooped down on them with their soup and the three set about to devouring their meals, eating in complete silence save the clink of their spoons against the side of the bowl.   
  
“You’re hungry,” Blaine commented to Sebastian as he reached for a hunk of bread. Sebastian had barely eaten anything in the last few days and it had Blaine worried. Sebastian had been using the excuse that he didn’t have the money for it, but Blaine heard the clink of coins in his pockets as they settled in for the night and knew he was lying. And his not having money was no reason to refuse to accept the food Blaine offered him.   
  
Sebastian looked up from his bowl. “I am,” he agreed before he returned his full attention to his meal.   
  
As orphans with no one to look out for them but themselves and those few in their lives, like Mrs. Peggotty, who would look kindly on them on occasion, their lives weren’t always the easiest. Almost weekly one gang of boys or another used some of their harsher methods to try and recruit one or all of them to their cause. There were nights they were so hungry they could barely remember their names and days they stood shivering on the streets. But they had each other, and that was worth more than what anyone else had.

* * *

Blaine had been on the streets for longer than he could remember. His earliest memory was of a face that danced somewhere between a man’s and a boy’s. He had been secreting Blaine a piece of bread and whispering for him to be quiet. Cooper was the name attached to the image. But of their relationship, or what happened to him, Blaine could not say.   
  
After Cooper, Blaine had briefly been taken in by a couple who wanted to make a thief of him in exchange for a roof over his head and a plate of slimy gruel every night. That arrangement ended with them being taken away—accused of robbing a gentleman and leaving him broken and bleeding in the streets—while Blaine sprinted in the opposite direction, faster than he had thought his legs could carry him.   
  
It was in the days following his displacement that he had met Quinn, a country girl who had run away to London instead of letting herself be sent to the workhouse after her parents died of fever. She had walked the entire way, a distance just over seventy miles, sleeping with pigs and stealing their scraps or lootings trees of their fruit. At first she had been resistant towards Blaine’s attempts at friendship, but even her stubbornness couldn’t ignore the fact that he found her every night, bringing with him whatever morsels he could collect to keep her from starving.   
  
They had managed for almost two years, always a little hungry and perpetually damp from spending night after night outside, when they had stumbled upon Sebastian. Literally stumbled, as he had been left for dead in an overflowing gutter. It had been a good week for them, Blaine having gotten his first regular job running errands for a blacksmith, and between the two of them they had managed to sneak his body into the boardinghouse. Almost all of their money had run out before he gained coherency.   
  
In heavily-accented English he had begrudgingly told them he had been made a cabin-boy after his father couldn’t pay off his debts. He had lived and worked on the vessel for three years, longer than anyone excepted he would make it, before he had taken ill in a Spanish port. He had no recollection of being abandoned in England, but shuddered in relief at the realization he wouldn’t have to return to his old life.   
  
Whether out of genuine gratitude, or the way Quinn had yelled at him when he tried to disappear after all they had done for him, Sebastian had stayed with them.   
  
While Blaine refused to do anything dishonest for a meal or a place to sleep and Quinn was only willing to pick a pocket or two, Sebastian  had no quarrel with doing whatever it took to keep the three of them fed and sheltered. He taught Quinn a few of his tricks and tried to teach Blaine, who had stoutly refused. Instead, he had introduced Blaine to the river, pointing out the types of vessels that might need help unloading their wares or who would be likely to pay a small sum to someone who knew the area and who could secure for them a night’s lodging.   
  
And Blaine and Quinn kept Sebastian from trouble. Where people referred to Sebastian as an urchin (or The Urchin, as they got older and his notoriety grew) for his spindly nature, they were just as willing to smile tightly and present an alibi for him, for the sake of his two friends. And on cold winter nights when there wasn’t enough to go around, it was Blaine’s connections that got them something warm to eat and Quinn’s angelic face that begged a place to sleep in exchange for whatever menial labor they could offer, or else calling in one of the many favors she collected throughout the year.

* * *

"Come on!" Sebastian gave Blaine’s arm another tug as they hurried through the cobbled streets, dodging in an out of the crowds, Quinn skipping along next to them.

Blaine dug his heels down, yanking them to a stop. “I’m not helping you steal from royalty,” he grumbled.   
  
He had been awoken when it was still dark out to Sebastian insisting that he bathe, a rare luxury for any of them. He had protested until he was all but dragged to the waiting bucket, Sebastian threatening to scrub him himself if he had to. When he was almost finished, Quinn had come flouncing into the room holding new second-hand clothes that were nicer than anything he had ever owned in his life. Reverently, he had put them on and it was only as he was being rushed up the crowded street he stopped to think there was something more going on.

"You wouldn’t have to do anything," Sebastian bemoaned. "We would only want to use you as a distraction."

"But we aren’t stealing anything today," Quinn said, glaring a reminder at Sebastian.

It was Sebastian’s turn to grumble but he was quickly silenced by Quinn smartly pinching him in the side.

She took Blaine’s other arm and looped it through hers. “We’re both on our best behavior today,” she promised, bringing her free hand up to cross a promissory X over her chest. “So, just trust us? Please?” Her lower lip slipped out into a pout and her eyes sparkled with unshed tears.   
  
“I always trust you,” Blaine muttered placatingly. He knew that neither of them would ever do anything to put him in danger, no matter how frequent their attempts at convincing him to help them in their schemes were. He let himself be pulled along again; this time, growing more excited with every step they took. When even Sebastian couldn’t keep the smile from his face, Blaine couldn’t help but feel like something big was going to happen.   
  
They dragged him through streets he was unfamiliar with and it felt as though they had walked for miles before the stopped in Leicester Square, an area he didn’t have much cause to frequent unless he was looking for Quinn or Sebastian who never failed to come home with a pocket full of nicked goods from the area.   
  
“Why.…?” He started to ask before he was distracted by the centerpiece of the square—[Wyld’s Globe](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyld's_Great_Globe). Although he knew he would never be able to go in, he could never help but stare at the outside whenever he was there, just imagining how great the inside must be. No map or globe in the world could compare to it. Within that one, fantastic building was the entire world. Every continent and ocean in detail he could only dream about as he snuck glances at maps in shop windows, or stared longingly out at the river.   
  
Noting his distraction, Sebastian’s grin only grew wider.   
  
“You always talk about how you want to see the world,” Quinn said slowly, giving Blaine’s mind ample time to wrap around each word.   
Blaine head shook back and forth in astounded disbelief, hands scrabbling nervously at his new clothes.  “There is no way we can afford this.”   
  
“We’ve been saving for weeks,” Sebastian said proudly.    
  
Blaine whipped around so quickly he nearly knocked Sebastian over. “Is  _that_ why you haven’t been eating?”   
  
Sebastian shrugged self-consciously, one hand drifting down to clamp over his stomach.   
  
“I thought you were sick!” He threw himself into his friends arms, relief coursing through him.   
  
“Told you he would worry,” Quinn hummed under her breath.   
  
“And your hair,” Blaine turned to her and indicated her short locks, cut a fortnight ago. A relief, she had claimed, from the summer heat.   
  
She shrugged happily and tossed what remained of her hair proudly over her shoulder. “Now,” she steered him over to a well-dressed woman who was standing a little ways away from the entrance. “Your chaperone for the day. You remember Mrs. Peggotty?”   
  
Blaine startled, embarrassed that he hadn’t recognized her without an apron around her waist. He bowed low to her, causing them all to laugh.   
  
“Your friends are quite the schemers. Planning all this behind your back,” she said with a twinkle in her eye.   
  
“And I am very grateful, ma’am. But I could never accept. All this… it’s too much.”   
  
“Nothing’s too much for you, Blaine,” Sebastian whispered softly as Quinn nodded eagerly next to him.   
  
“I-” he started to protest again but stopped. His friends were so proud of their accomplishment, had scrimped and saved for weeks making it possible for him to live his dream, and to not accept it would be even worse than accepting it. “Thank you,” he whispered.   
  
“Memorize everything,” Quinn commanded, pushing him towards the entrance.   
  
The happiness that had been building warred with the disappointment of his friends not going with him. “You mean you aren’t coming?”   
  
Sebastian gave an easy shrug, “I’ve seen more than enough of the world.”  
  
“And someone has to keep him from mischief, or we would never see him again.”   
  
“I won’t take too long,” he swore. “And I will remember absolutely everything.” Overcome with emotion, he threw himself between them, holding them in a tight embrace and wriggling in boyish delight when they hugged him back. 


End file.
